Some evangelical Christians hold to an interpretation of Bible prophecy known as the post-tribulation rapture, in which the world will have to go through a seven-year period of war and global dictatorship known as the "Great Tribulation". Jim McKeever helped popularize survival preparations among this branch of evangelical Christians with his 1978 book Christians Will Go Through the Tribulation, and How To Prepare For It.
He also sees a regular clustering of things in popular culture, including Bear Grylls-style survivor shows on television and the proliferation of zombie apocalypse movies, which lead to peaks and troughs of prepping behaviour. “If you take a step back and look, you can see that there is an underlying yearning that is met by these behaviours,” he says.
If you’re anything like me, you can easily get sucked into thinking about doing specific things that really won’t help you out all that much. These kinds of tasks could be redundant and repetitive, or even appealing and quite fun, but in actual reality, happen to be way too time consuming for the amount of pay off you’d get from doing them. Don’t let yourself get sucked back in to spending time on these kinds of task if you find they’re absorbing way too much of your time! Stick them on a not to do list to remind yourself to keep your time for things that have a higher pay off!
What Jennifer, a self-described prepper who declined to share her last name for security reasons, didn’t anticipate was the sheer force of Maria’s rains and 155 mile per hour winds — and how little the storm shutters would do to protect her home. “I was taking water out of the bedrooms, the living rooms, the hallways,” she says. “The house was flooded.” At one point, a piece of debris flew off a neighbor’s roof and got stuck between the outside wall of Jennifer’s pantry and the storm shutters, ripping off a pair of windows in the process.
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And none of us want to be without our cell phones any longer than we have to (plus they may be our only connection to the outside world so there's that) so keep an eye on the weather. If a storm is brewing, be sure you're staying charged up. Better still, have a non-electric back-up charger. Besides solar options, Martin says, there are even wind and water powered chargers now.

You might think it’s silly to grab one of these when you can DIY one yourself, but I do often feel like preps that are ugly are kind of frustrating to have to live with in the long-term. Besides, if you’re trying to hide the fact that you’re a prepper, nothing works better than hiding your preps in a pretty package like this. And you buy them once, how often are you going to replace a rain barrel? Pretty much never!
First, bring needed items into the main building and prepare to shelter in place. After going through Prepper University, we have window kits in each room to seal windows and doors. Get out radiation detectors and radios. Test radios with neighbors. take a shower and wash clothes, then start filling tubs with water and prepare to shut off water to the house to prevent contamination. Might be the last shower for a while. Pray. Those are the only things left, given time.
Finally something other than right wing sound bites. There are a lot of us out here that are concerned about survival and where our country is going that DO NOT buy into the baloney that is saying that liberals/progressives are the source of our problems. Yes, people on the left were beaten, imprisoned, and harassed for their beliefs. And yes, there are intolerant jackasses on the left, but the amount of violence, intimidation, denial of rights, and harassment coming from the right far outweighs any other source. I do not care about party labels-right wing democrats in the first 2/3 of the 20th century were responsible for much of the above.Look at the history that does not get taught-Rosewood, Tulsa, Southern Arkansas, and the thousands of lynchings that occurred. These were not done by progressives/liberals. Research history, read about our history, learn what really went on. Then proceed with making survival plans that are positive for our future.
Gale, you’re right about the bug eggs. I know it’s a little skeevy to think about but *nearly all* grain products (whole wheat berries, biscuit mix, pasta, cornmeal, anything) already have bug eggs in them. That’s what the dry ice is for; it helps stave off rancidity and it also prevents (ew) hatching! Or you can freeze the items for a week and then store long-term, but that’s a lot more trouble than it sounds like and doesn’t help prolong shelf life.
Any canned foods you purchase at the grocery store will store for a number of years under the right conditions. Canned food makes great prepper food because it can be stored for such a long time and because you can eat it right out of the can if necessary. Canned food will also provide a hot meal when you have the means to heat it and you don’t need any extra water or ingredients. Plus, depending on what you buy, you can get a complete meal in a can (think soups and stews) and you can get almost anything you could want in terms of canned food, including:

When most people start thinking about family preparedness, they focus on food. Not shelter, gear, sanitation, power, self-defense or the myriad of other concerns that need to be addressed following an emergency or disaster situation. Quite simply, food is the number one concern people have second only to their concern for having an adequate supply of water.

I would like to add, buying too much of something at one time. I have lots of water and food stored. Toothpaste, soap, qtips and such. How much medical and bandaid? NONE. Make a list most definitely. But include stuff you HAVEN’T BOUGHT yet. Checkmark items you have with the amounts. Also I have 3 non bullet weapons and have a 4th on the way. A regular size crossbow (with a broad head it will penetrate any class of body armor) A pistol crossbow which is actually more powerful than the large one, but you can’t get broad head for them. They will however penetrate 3/4 pressed plywood particle board. Good for human threat or rabbit get. A wrist rocket slingshot with “hunting” rubbers and I’m waiting on a new item called a “Pocket Shot”. It’s a new type of slingshot that self centers the ammo. You can fire almost twice the ammo in the same amount of time. All 4 will be valuable to be quiet during the first month. After the hordes have been thinned, noise from a gun will bring less attention.

While I understand what your saying, I can’t agree. If I’m the only one in my neighborhood that is prepping I won’t have enough supplies to cover the 100 odd families around me. So I don’t plan on staying here. My group has a location where we will join up together and where the vast majority of our supplies are and where we can defend what we’ve spent many years and many, many dollars putting together. If refugees happen to come across our front gate, we will assist them to the best of our abilities with food and medical aid and then send them on their way. To try to cover an entire town or village with what is actually our limited supplies means we all starve together. Even the garden with what seeds someone may have put aside wouldn’t be enough to feed so many hungry mouths. That’s why we made the decision long ago to not put ourselves in that position.

Our grandparents were the original preppers, really. They could make a chicken last for two weeks. When my wife and I are wandering around the supermarket, I’ll keep my eye out. I’m always looking at a product’s shelf life. I don’t want to buy food that has a shelf life of two weeks; I need five years plus. It’s an attitude, really, but it’s also a fascinating hobby. I’m constantly learning survival techniques: how to forage, hunt, trap, fish, purify water. And I’m informed on larger environmental and political issues by friends in the know. People think I’m a tin hat-wearing nutter, sitting here guarding 3,000 tins of beans, but it’s not all-consuming. It’s like having a spare tyre in your car, or some winter basics: a torch, some candles, a sleeping bag. You can leave it at that, you don’t have to go mad. That’s how I started – I just happened to carry on.

So a nuclear war would be bad, but how likely is it? Well, not as likely as it could be. This isn’t 1983; the Cold War is over. On the other hand, it could come back. Russia is smarting from the treatment we gave them during the Clinton era, and they’re steadily rebuilding their military. Russia’s nuclear forces are the most powerful on Earth, and President Putin probably has the starch to use them if he thinks it’s necessary. Putin is also pushing hard to rebuild Russia’s influence in eastern Europe, and there are several places where a small border skirmish could grow into a confrontation between Russian and NATO troops. If that happens, nuclear war is back on the table.

Inspire Those Around you to Start Prepping Do you know the one question that always comes up? Do you know the biggest struggle that preppers face outside of money in our little niche? It’s the struggle of getting those around us to take preparedness and survival as passionately as we do! Getting Family Inspired We are inspired people and our passion manifests […] May 23, 2018 | 0 Comments
I purchased a 30 day supply for 2 people of freeze dried food – that was when I had a basement to store it in. Now i live in the Arizona desert with no basement. I considered purchasing additional food storage but then realized, I for some reason I have no power, it’ll most likely be very hot (especially if summer time), therefore not way to regulate temperature. Any storage food I did purchase would be ruined ( I assume). Anyone else have this issue when thinking about the unthinkable?
11/4/18 Birthright citizenshipEnable IntenseDebate Comments: Enable IntenseDebate CommentsUniversity of Illinois labor and employment relations professor Michael LeRoy is an expert on immigration and employment law. In an interview with UoI News Bureau business and law editor Phil Ciciora, LeRoy discusses the implications of President Trump’s bid to potentially end birthright citizenship in the U.S. read mor […]
I wish we’d all stop using the term democracy when describing America. We’re a limited Constitutional Republic and there is a big difference between them. My concern is when you accept the other sides terms in a debate, you give them the upper hand and they control which way the debate goes. Same with gun control, allowing them to hammer in the words “Saturday night special” or ” assault weapons” lets them control which way things go and weakens our position.
Didn’t see this on the list and it could be an entire new thread. But first have a olan of what you will do. Think of all scenarios. What to do if you are not at home with the family. Where do you meet? Do you have a bug out site that everyone who needs to know has a map to it and knows when to bug out. Make sure you have what you need from this llist at the bug out site already. Do not try to haul what you need once you get there. You wil never make… Read more »
Without water, you won’t survive for long. If the circumstances are perfect, meaning the weather is temperate, and you aren’t active, your timeline for survival without water is likely only as much as a week. But more likely, it is three days maximum. And in no way should one expect a significant catastrophe to leave you behind in a perfect scenario.

Basic Dining Utensils- A stash of disposable plates, cups, napkins and cutlery will help reduce water usage and maintain cleanliness. Keep a set of reusable camping style cutlery and mess kits around in case you run out of the former. You might want to keep a small set of steel pots or bowls with your stash to ensure you have suitable vessels for meal prep.

Learn about bulk foods and cooking methods that your can use when there is no power to your home. Many of the websites selling food will have blogs as well as links to helpful information. Why not use them to increase your overall knowledge and become familiar with additional tactics and strategies for storing food for the long term in a hassle free manner?
I apologize for posting twice, I do not reply on these forums very often and am not quite sure how I did that. However,I did not and do not absolve any party from blame. Right wing repression knows no party, the thousands of lynchings were not done by democrats or republicans, they were done by white men afraid of losing their power. The murders and mass killings in the places I listed were done by whites afraid of losing the power and privilege they had accumulated.
Sticking around when there is at least a 50% chance of a disaster occurring (hurricane, flood, landslides, tsunami, wildfire) is just plain silly. Part of your planning should be to determine the trigger point for evacuation as well as identification of an evacuation site and a route to get there. Better yet, plan multiple alternate routes as well.
Learn about bulk foods and cooking methods that your can use when there is no power to your home. Many of the websites selling food will have blogs as well as links to helpful information. Why not use them to increase your overall knowledge and become familiar with additional tactics and strategies for storing food for the long term in a hassle free manner?
Is this a complete list of everything you will need to be fully prepared food-wise? Heck no. Are the quantities adequate to feed a family for a month, three months or longer? Perhaps a month but not much longer. Truthfully, for long term storage you need more food and more variety (read about the top survival food brands here) as well as some packaging methods (Mylar bags or buckets plus oxygen absorbers) to insure that your will food stay viable and pest free for years to come.
This is one of the items on the list we do have, and by golly it’s great. Definitely not a complete replacement for carrying a proper firesteel, and it would be good to have a better knife on you outdoors, but if you like carrying backups (as I’ve already expressed I do!) this is one of those excellent investments that delivers on its promises. Great multi-tool; but I’m not going to regurgitate information – you want more about it, check out Thomas’ review of it here.
I think the FaceBook comment, “the electric company knew days in advance the ice was coming and THEY did not prepare.” perfectly demonstrates Mr. Martenson’s approach…..”the ‘Crash Course’ was the problem definition….but, “the book, Prosper, is the solution space.” Some saw the ice storm coming, but seemingly did not prepare (mentally, physically or spiritually); expecting the electric company to make it somehow disappear…..(normalcy bias?)
This is a partial list of many things that disappear fast in an emergency. Look for things you should stock pile before the crisis. Many of these items can be used to barter for items that you or your family might want or need. For example: During the gold rush of 1849 the people who had shovels became wealthy from the miners who needed them. Remember: A wise man purchases his insurance before the fire starts. Create a scheduled plan to get any of these things.

Any prepper plan has to take into consideration what food options will be best in various situations. Usually we recommend different types of food for different scenarios. If the power goes out you look for food that doesn’t need to be cooked. Canned tuna, MRE’s and snack bars fall into this category of course so do a lot of other foods. You want to store foods that your family will eat but there is also a need to have long-term storable food that you can take with you in a bug out bag. Frequently I will recommend freeze-dried foods for bug out bags, but those do require some preparation. For starters they need hot water or else you are eating rocks. MREs do not need water (except the pudding) and you don’t even need to heat them up.

Emergency Radio- Even a very severe disaster is unlikely to obliterate communications grids entirely. Pickup one of the hand-cranked or battery-powered emergency radios so you will always be able to passively receive information so long as authorities are transmitting. Some nicer models include a flashlight or even USB charging ports. So long as you have the muscle, it will have power.
If you’re one who needs to make some adjustments, that’s okay. Look at these suggestions and add the things you’re missing. It’s easy to take a basic storage and add the essentials to make it livable, but it needs to be done. As I did the research for my cookbook I wanted to include recipes that gave help to families no matter what they had stored. As I put the material together it was fascinating to discover what the pioneers ate is the type of things we store. But if you have stored only the 4 basics, there’s very, very little you can do with it. By adding even just a few things it greatly increases your options, and the prospect of your family surviving on it. As I studied how the pioneers lived and ate, my whole feeling for food changed. I realized our storage is what most of the world has always lived on. If it’s put together the right way we’ll be returning to good basic living with a few goodies thrown in.
Don’t forget to make a list of any other kind you might need; a spare car battery, perhaps, or ones for a GPS or to power a charging pack for other electronic devices. Think it through. Also, do not skimp on quality batteries! They are not made equal; better brands will typically have more juice and longer shelf lives. Alkaline batteries lose a significant amount of power over time, so rotate these like anything else. Lithium batteries have much longer shelf lives than alkaline but are significantly more expensive.
If the height of the Concrete shelter is decreased to 8 feet ( the same height of the ceilings in your home), the required depth of the hole is reduced to 10-11 feet and the gross interior area is 1,600 cubic feet. This is still more than a 10 foot pipe of the same length while also providing complete use of the space, as the side walls are not coming in toward the center as they do in a pipe.
I can sleep at night because I’m well on way to having a year’s worth of the highest quality food freeze dried with a 20 year shelf life. I also am a huge fan of Berkey Water filters. We live in an intense chicken, turkey, hog barn agribusiness area – lots of potential harm to our water supplies besides roundup. Berkey is king if you read the independent lab reports – it does the best job purifying the water while keeping the needed minerals in the water your body needs.
Enigma, your constant harping about the “Zionists” is really obnoxious! Regardless of what you’ve heard, the Jews (or Zionists, or Hebrews or whatever you choose to call them) are NOT singlehandedly responsible for the ills of the world! Neither is Trump, neo-cons, whites, blacks, the left, the right, the middle, Russia, China, North Korea, the USA, etc.,etc.,etc. There’s plenty of culpability to go around, so fix the problem, not the blame! Same goes for you too JJ, with your “white man’s guilt”. Unless you personally are guilty of racist actions/remarks in the past and this is your way of attoneing please stop blaming white conservatives for the inner city blight. And actually, slavery is alive and well. Undocumented workers who have been encouraged to come here with lies are forced to work for sub-standard wages because they can’t get real jobs because they’re illegal. And a LOT are in Calfornia where there are sanctuary cities and also big agro. What a coincidence! And many poor minority youths can’t find jobs so they sell drugs to other poor minorities who get arrested and go to jails which are big businesses, often the biggest employers in urban areas. Then when they get out they can’t find work, so they wind up on the dole ( also big business), start slinging again and on and on. Have you never noticed that the kids killed by “accident” in the random drive by are ALWAYS nice, bright kids who had a real future ahead of them? They would have broken out of the cycle of poverty and desperation and probably been able to help others do the same which would have messed up the local economy if enough people got on board. That would also adversely affect the local politicians who depend on a subjugated constituency for voting blocs and the all important base. They fulfill just enough of their election promises to lull their base into thinking that things will actually change for the better, then they start sneaking their actual agenda through. Don’t get sucked into this blame game b.s. ! Put the blame where it belongs – big business, big government and human greed.

Depends on the size of your family and the time period in which you’ll use it. Once mylar or buckets are open, they are susceptible to many organisms that will make your food inedible. Double to triple serving sizes max. Filling tummies is fairly easy. Doing it safely and palateably is different. Also, your family will need variety to keep harmony. Much of our emotional well-being depends on the gut.

There’s going to be a fire risk in your bunker, and it could even be in the walls. Many professional companies use Expanded Polystyrme (EPS) foam blocks which, according to Clarence Mason of Tempest Building Systems, are highly flammable and full of toxic chemicals in an attempt to make it less flammable. They should, ideally, be encased with something that is not flammable, but because they’re used in part to reduce costs, you might be tempted not to.
The second point you should know is this — suppose you do manage to die a quick, merciful death. What about your kids? Your grandkids? What kind of future will they face on their own? Foraging for food, drinking tainted water, becoming easy targets for human predators…is that really the future you would wish upon them? For that reason alone, it makes sense to become educated about nuclear events, how to prepare for them, and how to survive them.
I rotate my storage a lot and used it last year when my husband was laid off. What I found is that I prefer smaller cans because I usually don’t need larger sizes. We have three kids left at home at this point. We still only cook for 5 people, one meal at a time and if you are in a situation where you don’t have refrigeration you may not want to have to store the large can leftovers.
18. 5 pounds of Coffee or 100 Tea Bags. There are those that will say that life without coffee is not life at all. Whole bean (assuming you have a hand grinder), ground or instant – take your choice. Or substitute tea. Green tea and many herbal teas are quite therapeutic so if you like tea, this may be a good way to go. To learn more about bulk coffee processing and storing for preppers, read this guide here.

I confess that I can go for days eating the same meal of baked potatoes over and over again. That said, most people need and want variety. This is especially true for children, the elderly and the infirm who may already be picky eaters. Plus, you need a variety of foods items in order to get a full complement of nutritional value from your meals.

This is one of the items on the list we do have, and by golly it’s great. Definitely not a complete replacement for carrying a proper firesteel, and it would be good to have a better knife on you outdoors, but if you like carrying backups (as I’ve already expressed I do!) this is one of those excellent investments that delivers on its promises. Great multi-tool; but I’m not going to regurgitate information – you want more about it, check out Thomas’ review of it here.

Ed, I was thinking about the box culverts as I reasd the article. As a Civil Engineer, I have used them in numerous applications as a cost effetive alternative to poured in place concrete. I would expect a bunker design would be an easy adaptation of the typical box culvert instalation. The ends can be precast solid or with openings for addition of steel or aluminum doors. Openings can also be cast in the sides or tops for hatch or vent installation with some size limitations. 12′ x 12′ x 4′ running length is as big as you can truck… Read more »

Cavemen were gathers before they began hunting. After that they were hunter-gatherers. They ate fruits, wild greens, roots, nuts and seeds. There are most definitely carbs in those. If you are not eating some carbs you are not healthy. You don’t need a lot unless you are very active and definitely do not need manufactured carbs but you do need some carbs in your diet to survive.